Henry The First Still King

There I was recently talking about funerals and two Spanish connections occurred.

First I noticed in the English Newspapers (brought back to me to Spain by my wife) that Thierre Henry was out of favour at Barcelona. The thought occurred to me that if Henry had been reading the same articles then it would be similar to his reading his own obituaries such was the definiteness of the statements writ large in the papers. “Lost touch with the team” “Henry off form” were there in bold type for all to see and believe, poor guy. 

Well after an early evening tea at the local Turkish Tea House we wandered slowly home and the magnetic pull of Pepe’s was too strong to resist despite us being starving for our dinner. We were in time to see the second half for Barcelona versus Valencia on the telly. Messi scored three times in the second half two supplied by Henry. The second assist (for the third goal) was sublime - no exaggeration!

Henri was outside the box in line with the penalty spot when he received the ball along the deck and at speed, his one and only touch was to clip the ball at an extreme angle straight to Messi who was running into the box at an at least 45 degree angle to where Henry was placed. It was a blind spot reverse pass clip that Messi met in his stride and two touches later put in the net. Praise to Messi but glory to Henry!

So one day after the obituaries Henry can write his own headlines, and one occurs - “Life in the old dog yet!” “El viejo perro esta vida!”

The second connection with a funeral is to the Manager of Real Madrid. Knocked out of Europe at home despite £450m + of talent is not what the President expects, not what the supporters expect, and being Real Madrid, not what the nation expects.

Despite everything supreme about Real and their supporters when such a high profile defeat comes along (particularly in the year that the final is being played in their stadium) the fans are like all others, The Manager must go! Death to the kingmaker!